iTunes Popularity Bar -> What Does It Mean?

[JustCallMeRoc]

Since ever I had iTunes I'm wondering about the Popularity bar.

Basically modern mainstream albums only have 2-3 songs with full popularity, whereas Jazz albums have almost every song in the album at full popularity.

How the hell does that even work? Jazz music is rarely in the top 10, how can it have more popularity? At first I thought maybe Popularity is a sum of Plays + Downloads, that's why I would have guessed they make more $$$, but if that would be the case we'd see more Jazz in the top 10.

Any ideas what this Popularity bar could mean?

[rack gear]

if all the songs on the album = 100% than popularity is a % of that representing individual sales.

the popularity ranking is directly proportional to total sales ranking of individual songs.

[JustCallMeRoc]

That was my first assumption, but as I said in my first post, this would mean Jazz musicians are making more $$$ - if that's the case why don't we see any of them in the top 10?

[rack gear]

Originally Posted by JustCallMeRoc

That was my first assumption, but as I said in my first post, this would mean Jazz musicians are making more $$$ - if that's the case why don't we see any of them in the top 10?

because it's relative, not absolute.

the ranking is only relative to the total sales of the other songs on that album, not to the ranking of all songs on itunes.

once you are in a general search, outside the specific album, than the rankings are more complex based on site wide stats.

this is why if there is a song called "big sky" it's most likely the pop song by that title will appear much higher in general rankings than the jazz version or song of the same title...

[JustCallMeRoc]

Let me rephrase that,

if the most selling song of a Jazz album is
- let's say 50,000
- the second selling 45,000
- and all the other songs range between 30,000 and 43,000,

then that would generate a full Popularity on all songs.

But if on a Pop album the best selling song sold

- 300,000
- the second best selling song 80,000
- and all others rank between 30,000 and 50,000

then that would cause to have the best selling song a full Popularity and the second maybe around 40% (or more) and the others would have below 40% or none at all.

Correct?


BTW this numbers are all made up by me and are just used for showcase purposes.


I guess how the actual mathematical formula looks like is a secret?

[rack gear]

if you had soundscan, it would be easy to figure out.

give me an example and I'll see if I can get someone to get me some numbers.

Originally Posted by JustCallMeRoc

Let me rephrase that,

if the most selling song of a Jazz album is
- let's say 50,000
- the second selling 45,000
- and all the other songs range between 30,000 and 43,000,

then that would generate a full Popularity on all songs.

But if on a Pop album the best selling song sold

- 300,000
- the second best selling song 80,000
- and all others rank between 30,000 and 50,000

then that would cause to have the best selling song a full Popularity and the second maybe around 40% (or more) and the others would have below 40% or none at all.

Correct?


BTW this numbers are all made up by me and are just used for showcase purposes.


I guess how the actual mathematical formula looks like is a secret?

[JustCallMeRoc]

Example, which basically made me investigate into this:

Jazz Album: Terence Blanchard - "Choices" (Full Popularity on ALL songs)

Pop Album: Ke$ha - "Animal" (which has a Full Popularity only on "Blah Blah Blah")

I'm just noticing, remember that Tik Tok was a big single of her, so that song SHOULD have a full Popularity as well but it doesn't. The same goes for Black Eyed Peas, their hit singles I Get a Feeling, Meet Me Halfway don't have full Popularity but their CURRENT song Imma Be does.

I'm guessing the Popularity function states what the name stands for, which song is the most POPULAR at this current time in RELATION to all the other songs of the album.

I guess if people buy Jazz from an artist they rather buy the whole album instead of one single song. With Pop it's a different story, they rather buy what they heard on the radio and don't even care about the rest of the album.

But I can't back this theory up.

[rack gear]

one quick note if you look in itunes - tok tok was a single before the album was released - so it doesn't ping in the album ranking, but in the singles ranking.

Originally Posted by JustCallMeRoc

Example, which basically made me investigate into this:

Jazz Album: Terence Blanchard - "Choices" (Full Popularity on ALL songs)

Pop Album: Ke$ha - "Animal" (which has a Full Popularity only on "Blah Blah Blah")

I'm just noticing, remember that Tik Tok was a big single of her, so that song SHOULD have a full Popularity as well but it doesn't. The same goes for Black Eyed Peas, their hit singles I Get a Feeling, Meet Me Halfway don't have full Popularity but their CURRENT song Imma Be does.

I'm guessing the Popularity function states what the name stands for, which song is the most POPULAR at this current time in RELATION to all the other songs of the album.

I guess if people buy Jazz from an artist they rather buy the whole album instead of one single song. With Pop it's a different story, they rather buy what they heard on the radio and don't even care about the rest of the album.

But I can't back this theory up.

[JustCallMeRoc]

Ohh yeah that makes sense.

Then that Popularity function is really not that valuable, at the end of the day I want to know how hot a song really is. Tik Tok was a hit, yet it shows little popularity within the album, what's the point of that function then?

Besides that it has a relation between songs within the album, when one song has sold huge amounts and the others a good amount less, then that one song will have full Popularity whereas the others will have little to nothing. Jazz albums will sell on all songs equally so all songs get full Popularity.

I don't really understand the value in this function? It seems so random, and not really something that is useful to the listener.

[rack gear]

I think it's useful in the larger context of search indexing, more than over all sales rankings. sales ranking can be seen on the various charts they provide, by both song and album.

Originally Posted by JustCallMeRoc

Ohh yeah that makes sense.

Then that Popularity function is really not that valuable, at the end of the day I want to know how hot a song really is. Tik Tok was a hit, yet it shows little popularity within the album, what's the point of that function then?

Besides that it has a relation between songs within the album, when one song has sold huge amounts and the others a good amount less, then that one song will have full Popularity whereas the others will have little to nothing. Jazz albums will sell on all songs equally so all songs get full Popularity.

I don't really understand the value in this function? It seems so random, and not really something that is useful to the listener.

[JustCallMeRoc]

Yeah that makes sense, what I meant is that the function is not really useful for the normal user/listener, they could keep that function under the hood unrevealed from the user and still use the function for search indexing. Right now it's more decoration than anything else.

[Phil Johnson]

I think it can be useful to an end user who's looking at an album or artist they're not all that familiar with. It gives them an idea of what the single or most popular song on there might be. In other a clue of where to start with that artist.

[initialsBB]

Exactly. That's what I use it for. For example, I've never heard this Ke$ha, so if I saw people talking about it on GS and I did a search for it on itunes, I would just listen to the most popular track to see what it's all about.

[JustCallMeRoc]

Originally Posted by Phil Johnson

I think it can be useful to an end user who's looking at an album or artist they're not all that familiar with. It gives them an idea of what the single or most popular song on there might be. In other a clue of where to start with that artist.

As stated in this thread, when the single gets released before the album, the popularity of the single will be within the album little to nothing. If the single gets released after the album or with the album together at the same time it will have full popularity, so you look at Ke$has album and don't even know that Tik Tok was a huge hit because it shows little popularity. What's the point in that?

It seems to be a complex and weird system that could be simplified and better thought out and more useful to the user.

[RobDrmz]

I know, I want to know the numbers too. Then again could just listen to the tunes and see what you like.

[chrisjones]

When searching for songs/bands, what is the popularity bar based on then? It can't be sales.

An example... in iTunes USA i bought one song and when searching for "that" band the popularity bar shows 0% in popularity, but other bands have some percent in that search result.

If I look at iTunes UK it shows 4% in popularity, but has sold 0 copies.

Ok... "The popularity bars can also be increased by searches, clicks & preview plays, not just sales."